Parvati
BIRDS HALFWAY BETWEEN SKY AND EARTH
COURSE
How did you become an artist?
I've been drawing since I was very young, but I really started exhibiting my work by chance, as I hadn't decided to make painting my profession. I studied sustainable development, but unable to find a job, I took odd jobs before showing some drawings at a festival. I was surprised to see people buying them, completely unexpected: that's when I realized I might be able to make a living from art. I then had a few exhibitions in my city, and that's how it all really began.
Street art came into my life quickly, because at the opening of one of these exhibitions, members of a collective came to meet me. We hit it off, and they invited me to join them in pasting up their work in the street. From the very first outing, it was love at first sight. I loved working on a large scale on the wall, discovering new techniques and new textures.
Why did you choose collage?
This choice was initially linked to the collective, as the two people who encouraged me to work in the street primarily did collage. Furthermore, I'm very slow at drawing, and painting directly on the wall isn't always possible in the street. In fact, I spend about three days on a life-size collage, which would be impossible to achieve independently. Beyond this issue of speed, the technique I now use with India ink is really well-suited to paper.
Finally, I'm not particularly interested in tearing down a wall: I have nothing against vandalism, but I also want to give the wall's owner the option of removing my collage if they don't like it. It's an unspoken agreement: I impose myself in a non-destructive, ephemeral way. The gradual deterioration that then occurs is quite poetic.
Do you choose specific locations to display your creations?
Unlike most artists, I don't create collages for specific locations. I generally paint my character first, then wander around town looking for a suitable spot. Instead, I seek out walls with character, drips, and stains, and I like the appearance of plant life because, since I often add branches to my birds, it allows me to create a play between the two.
Your early drawings already featured this plant theme. What does it represent for you that you incorporate it into your different worlds?
I was born in French Guiana, in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, and grew up constantly surrounded by vegetation. For people unfamiliar with this forest, it's an awe-inspiring world, both for its wildlife—though it's hidden—and for its flora, the vines and the foliage. It can almost feel oppressive, but it's a world in which I feel at home. I often say I feel like sap flows through my veins, and I feel very connected to this plant life.
So, the branching would now be more of a remnant of your journey than the inclusion of vegetation in the city?
This dimension remains in the background. That's also why I look for places where vegetation is present, like ivy on walls, because these are places we tend to forget when walking down the street, and putting up a collage there encourages a more attentive look. Regarding my relationship to urban space, it's also important to know that I've pasted my work in very small villages, in places that aren't urban as such, with residents who aren't used to seeing street art, who don't know what it is, but who can still be impacted by these paintings. It seems important to me to get out of cities like Paris or Lyon. On the other hand, I don't do urban exploration, because I'm not looking for abandoned places, but rather for vibrant places where there can be this interaction with passersby.
COLLAGE AND THE STREET
How did you go from your original home to the street, which is perhaps the most opposite universe?
It's true that I grew up in the countryside, never having lived in a big city before adulthood. As a result, I had virtually no "graffiti culture" before painting my first wall. If the street appealed to me, it was for its rebellious side, but above all for the free nature of these works offered to an uninvited, and sometimes uninformed, public. There's a militant dimension to presenting art in this way; it reflected my values, and that's what led me to street art. Very quickly, I felt comfortable with the artists in this scene, more at home than in the world of Fine Arts, where there's a lot of competition and pretense. The solidarity, mutual support, and ease of access allowed the street to become an obvious choice for me as a space for artistic creation, even though it wasn't my original world.
In what way is the street a unique space for creation?
Except on the largest walls, my figures are usually life-size. I want them to blend in with passersby, so that an interaction can occur between them. The street is also a completely democratic space, perhaps even the most democratic for me, because we all pass through it, whether rich or poor, foreign or local, going to work, home, visiting someone, shopping, strolling… It's a place where artworks can reach an audience that isn't invited, that doesn't go to an exhibition, that doesn't have to walk through the door of a gallery or even allow themselves the opportunity to do so, because many people don't dare take that step. And what truly interests me is this possibility of reaching everyone.
Furthermore, I call my bird-headed characters Migrants. The idea is to draw a parallel between migratory birds and migrants, offering them a symbolic place as passersby among passersby, fully integrated into our society. And if this is a utopia, the street is the best space to bring it to life.
Do you only glue unique pieces?
Indeed, it's very important to me not to make reproductions, because I believe the street and its passersby deserve originals. With my first collage, I used a print, and I really didn't like it because I felt like I was lying to people; I found it fake. So I had to accept working thirty hours on a collage that could be torn down the next day, but it's a risk I'm willing to take because if I advocate for people to see painting in the street without having to walk into a gallery, it's also so they can see real works of art.
What is your relationship with photography?
I don't consider my photographs to be works of art. Sometimes people take pictures of some of my collages and do incredible things with them, but I take them myself for archiving and sharing them online. While it's always better to see a painting in person, this allows those who can't travel to see the work.
HUMAN BIRDS
How did your early paintings gradually evolve into these bird-headed characters?
My earlier figures were often face-focused, already possessing a dreamlike quality and branches sprouting from their heads. I held an exhibition in Lyon with these paintings, but once I was standing in front of the canvases, I realized it wasn't the atmosphere I wanted to convey. It was a real turning point: for six months, I took a break from painting to reflect on my work. I went back to a bird-headed figure I had painted years before, a figure that had stayed with me. There was something there I wanted to explore that I hadn't pursued. So I tried to recreate it on a human scale. The answer was immediate. I felt as if my entire artistic journey had led me to that moment.
Your work is distinguished by recurring oppositions in the use of color and a dreamlike style for the bird heads, with that of black and white and a realistic treatment for the naked bodies or the clothes.
When I painted portraits, they were in black and white, so I reused this method for my first birds. I quickly realized it was a shame not to show their incredible colors, as birds are among the most colorful animals. I always paint birds that exist, with great ornithological accuracy. However, I insisted on keeping black and white for human figures, in order to magnify the head by creating this contrast.
Regarding nudity or clothing, I want to create a sense of similarity: although they have bird heads, I want my characters to resemble passersby on the street. Therefore, I try to dress them like everyone else. I work with models, and while we initially chose their clothes together, I now tell them to come as they are. On canvas, I sometimes explore nudity, and dreamlike imagery then also connects with the body.
My models aren't just technical references: while I sometimes suggest poses to them, they're often the ones who bring things I hadn't thought of and give me ideas later on. A collaboration thus develops between us: one of the models I work with regularly exudes a nonchalance that I really like, because she's quite different from me. Through this unfamiliar demeanor, she brings a truly interesting material to work with.
What story do the body and gestures tell?
I try to keep the narrative vague enough so that everyone can create their own story. I don't want to offer too many clues in the paintings I present. This idea connects to the dreamlike dimension and everyone's daydreams, but also to the childlike imagination that we all still carry within us. When we were little, we easily told ourselves stories while looking at pictures, something that's harder to do as adults. I try to rekindle this feeling, and I like to observe people incognito in front of my collages to see if they create their own stories. This approach is essential for me.
Why choose to represent life-size characters?
They're slightly larger than life-size, because the very first ones made this way seemed small in the context of the street. Now they're two meters tall, because that's what allows them, when glimpsed out of the corner of your eye, to give the impression that they're real people. Sometimes people jump when I paste them up in rather dark places. Our brains are conditioned to recognize the human silhouette, and if my figures were much smaller or much larger, they wouldn't have this impact, which opens the door to dialogue: because they resemble us, they make us question things.
You use India ink for your outdoor collages.
I use India ink to paint the bodies of my figures, for the drapery and skin. For the birds' heads, I don't use the same paints in the street as on canvas, for ecological reasons, because in the street I paint with casein-based paint, derived from milk proteins and completely biodegradable. Previously I used acrylic, but it would flake off and leave bits of paint—and therefore, plastic—on the ground. On canvas, I always use acrylic because casein unfortunately doesn't offer the same level of detail. I would, however, like to find a more environmentally friendly alternative. I'm also increasingly using oil paint as I try to draw inspiration from the old painting techniques of the great masters, particularly the sfumatos and glazes. I spend a lot of time wandering through museums to scrutinize the canvases in detail and try to understand how the painters worked.
I also sometimes use spray paint for large canvases or on frescoes, so that I can decorate the backgrounds with stencils: as I am half Indian, I am inspired by motifs that appear in the crafts of South India, on fabrics or carved wood.
URBAN ART AND THE PURSUIT OF BEAUTY
Do you consider Urban Art to be a fully-fledged artistic movement?
For me, it's obvious that this movement exists. It stems from a multifaceted history, and while I feel much more like an heir to Ernest Pignon-Ernest than to the early American graffiti artists, I think it's fantastic that the two have gradually converged. I feel like this movement forms a large family, and I'm happy to be a part of it. I find it extraordinary, particularly in terms of freedom, but also in its reclaiming of public space. The street should belong to everyone! There are many subcategories within street art, from murals to small pieces of vandalism, but I think they all absolutely have their place. The dialogue that develops with architecture is also interesting, even if it doesn't always please architects.
Above all, I think I'm angry at contemporary art as it is today, because it's often very elitist and only presented to people with a certain level of education that allows them to understand it. I've heard people say: I can't say if I like it because I don't know anything about it.. It's a terribly sad thought. Yet, contemporary art often provokes these reactions, and while there are things I personally like very much, they remain difficult for most of the public to grasp.
That's an interesting question: what exactly defines elitist art? Is it the way it is presented to the public, or the possibility it offers (or doesn't offer) of being understood?
The question is complex. Indeed, I think the location plays a significant role, but if we take the example of sculpture displayed in public spaces, the problem remains if the work is too conceptual (I'm thinking, for example, of Paul McCarthy's Christmas tree). It becomes too difficult for the public to receive it, to understand it, to be moved by it. There are truly interesting things in contemporary art, but I find it regrettable, even disrespectful to the public, to have to read fifteen pages of an artist's statement, or to need a master's degree in art history to grasp the artist's intention. In my opinion, the artwork should stand on its own. We don't need to read anything to find the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel beautiful, or The Kiss by Rodin.
Moreover, and I know this idea upsets many art critics today, I am very attached to aesthetics, and to go further, to Beauty in the philosophical sense of the term. This is something that has been lost in contemporary art: if it was necessary in Duchamp's time to detach oneself from the notion of pure aesthetics, I think it would be good if we returned to it because there is still much to explore.
Furthermore, I am very attached to technique. When you look back at the history of art, most of the great masters were also great technicians. But when you look at contemporary artists, many no longer are, or even create their own works, offering only a concept. You have to be quick, productive, think rather than do. This bothers me: while it's true that art is born from an idea, I believe it has no substance if the artist isn't the craftsman of their work. And this is a long process and requires expertise. I have trouble seeing contemporary art, and especially conceptual art, as art. I respect it, find it important, am sometimes moved by it, but I see it more as a new form of applied philosophy.
Contemporary art has gradually distanced itself from humanity, instead of elevating it. I like urban art because it's a popular art form, which speaks to everyone and is understandable to everyone.
Street art allows artists with more sensitive than conceptual approaches to express themselves on the same level.
The fact that there isn't enough meaning is regularly criticized. This pressure comes from contemporary art, where the message, even if it isn't controversial or politically engaged, plays a crucial role. Consequently, even artists whose approach is more focused on aesthetics feel compelled to justify themselves and find a message to convey. Everyone feels obligated to explain what they are denouncing. Yet I don't think it's absolutely necessary.
Beyond that, I believe that simply intending to bring something beautiful to the street is in itself an act of activism. We live in a society that's falling apart, whose values are rather ugly, and bringing a little poetry to try and surround people with beauty is something I believe in. It doesn't always work, and some people are more receptive than others, but if at least one person experiences my work in this way, it's a victory.
Some would argue that it's futile to try to bring beauty to the street, as it's an inherently subjective concept. Do you think there's a point at which the intention to create an aesthetically pleasing work would be appreciated by everyone?
I could never answer that, because it's an indescribable concept. I think there's no point in pretending, because Beauty seems unattainable to me anyway. It's the intention that counts: there's nothing wrong with trying.
First and foremost, I believe it's essential to distinguish between aesthetics and beauty: beauty is not simply pretty, nor is it the same as peace or pleasantness. I'm not aiming to create decorations for living rooms or public spaces.
I spend my time reading philosophers' opinions on this term, but their views diverge between those who believe beauty is universal and those who think it is intrinsically subjective, without anyone truly being able to define it. For me, beauty is first and foremost a feeling or an emotion. I know this because I have already experienced it, but I couldn't explain it in words. When I paint, I try to strive towards this feeling. Of course, I never truly achieve it, and when I look at a painting again six months later, I invariably think I could have gone further. There are sometimes moments of grace, a brushstroke in which I feel there's something special, but this happens to me much more often when looking at the work of other artists than in my own paintings.
I once found myself practically falling to my knees before a painting in a fine arts museum. It wasn't a famous painter, not a well-known work, but it had captivated me*. Yet this painting before which I stood also made me want to flee: it was so beautiful it was almost unbearable. This work depicted the dead Christ being taken down from the cross: nothing pretty here, a rather bleak and sorrowful subject, yet this painting provoked in me a great sense of exaltation. In this light, this chiaroscuro without grandiloquence, without violence, in the pale flesh, the barely visible blood, the death all in its simplicity, there was something that bordered on the sublime. I believe that beauty and terror work very well together. I like to work with opposing forces: chiaroscuro, realism and dreamlike imagery, the animal and the vegetal, the beautiful and the disturbing. That's why my work is sometimes dark, especially when I create branches from naked bodies, giving them a somewhat strange appearance. There's a recent art movement that originated in Australia, the Beautiful bizarre, close to Neo-surrealism, with which I feel a connection. Baudelaire said that «"Beauty is always strange."» I am completely convinced by this statement.
* The Dead Christ, Hippolyte Michaud, 1881. Beaune Museum of Fine Arts
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